African Leadership in ICT Needs Analysis South Africa - GeSCI

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ii.Desk Research Analysis – Assessment of KS Status and ICT, Education and STI Pillars in South Africa South Africa is one the leading Knowledge based Society countries in Africa as ranked by Information Society Index. The institutions for Knowledge based Society are in place as well as the policies and strategies. One of the key challenges is lack of collaboration between public and private sector and between public sector organisations. South Africa has great potential technologically and in human resources to become one of the leading countries in research and development and innovation. This requires investments in research and higher education as well as basic education. The national plans and visions are in place. The different levels, national, provincial and local have their visions and plans. These plans need to be aligned. There are a number of challenges that the South African system needs to resolve to make overall progress in knowledge based society. The Education, ICT, Science and Technology and Innovation pillars are interrelated. Their interaction for promoting social and economic progress is a critical goal that all the stakeholders recognise but seem to have difficulties in translating into tangible social and economic gains for the diverse communities in South Africa. South African national system of innovation can benefit by developing a systematic interaction of policies, knowledge, stakeholders and incentives to facilitate implementation. The main challenge comes from the problems in building skilled human capacity. There are a number of issues that are specific to the development and dynamics of education from basic to higher education in South Africa. The country has not yet overcome the apartheid legacy despite reforms to facilitate a transition to a post‐ apartheid education arrangement that blends and harnesses the diversity of the population and the races to blend and work to realise the various policies that have been coming out from the Government. There has been also frequent Governmental merging and separations of ministries and it appears that a top civil service that is independent of political and party influence is yet to be formed. This makes it harder when policies are formulated and when top personnel changes education policies come under review and changes of policies are invoked. Page 22 of 55 African Leadership in ICT, ALICT - http://www.gesci.org/african-leadership-in-ict-alict.html
Basic education in South Africa suffers from both lack of infrastructure and qualified teachers especially in the rural areas. In one of the interviews we were informed that 3600 schools did not have electricity; 2600 schools did not have water; 400 schools had buildings built from mud; and more alarmingly that 92% of the schools did not have full libraries. In addition there were up to 30,000 unqualified teachers who were teaching in the system. One can imagine if they do not have these basic infrastructures, how they can have ICT infrastructure. Though there is a council for teachers’ registration, most teachers were not yet registered. The council of teachers’ registration in principle should not register those that are unqualified. These figures along with other evidence from numerous reports would suggest that basic education in South Africa is in a dire state as a result of the main challenges of expansions and integration. The implication is that the feeder from basic/primary education to secondary schools and the latter to tertiary post‐school education systems is essentially very weak (Chisholm, 2004; Gibberd, 2007). The government has been active in terms of policies to address these issues. The ambition of the South African Government is to integrate fully ICT into all spheres of education starting from the foundation of basic education to all the post‐school educational opportunities for the citizenry as a whole. ICT skills are seen as an integral part for the reduction of poverty, creation of sustainable livelihood, harnessing the diversity of society and strengthening economy, state and society as demonstrated through the strategic plans and visions developed in the last 10 years. However, policy declaration is one thing, making the hard choices of implementation by putting in place the mandate, the resources, the policies, the regulatory frameworks, the incentives and the monitoring and evaluation and the feedback is a completely different skill. Discussions with those interviewed, revealed that nearly all of them acknowledged that policy formulation is not a problem; it is implementation that is the real bottleneck. The Importance of ICT in South Africa ICT has become as important as electricity, and water in today’s globalised economy and society. It is a key cross cutting infrastructure that requires investment to produce, keep up with technological developments sustainability and maintenance. It is a central and driving technology for strengthening the South African national system of innovation. The potential of Page 23 of 55 African Leadership in ICT, ALICT - http://www.gesci.org/african-leadership-in-ict-alict.html
Page 1 and 2: African Leadership in ICT Assessmen
Page 3 and 4: Opportunities, Needs and Gaps - wit
Page 5 and 6: PRI Public Research Institution R &
Page 7 and 8: disadvantaged black students. There
Page 9 and 10: in the middle income group the rank
Page 11 and 12: taken important strides forward, th
Page 13 and 14: • Centralised Ordering: The Commi
Page 15 and 16: The White Paper characterises schoo
Page 17 and 18: • The International ICT R&D Colla
Page 19 and 20: The report visions literacy and ICT
Page 21: • A National Research Foundation
Page 25 and 26: stimulating application for innovat
Page 27 and 28: 4. Field Research i. High Level Int
Page 29 and 30: ii. Middle Level Interviews (middle
Page 31 and 32: unimportant, 2 for moderately impor
Page 33 and 34: Fig.2 South Africa Senior Level Man
Page 35 and 36: Fig.4 South Africa Middle Level Man
Page 37 and 38: 5. Conclusions and Recommendations
Page 39 and 40: Recommendations General recommendat
Page 41 and 42: References Chisholm, L. (2004) The
Page 43 and 44: Appendices Appendix 1: Referenced R
Page 45 and 46: Appendix 2: Interviews: URL, Contac
Page 47 and 48: Appendix 4: Leadership capacity que
Page 49 and 50: Appendix 5: Importance - Prioritisa
Page 51 and 52: Low IMPORTANCE High Quadrant III: H
Page 53 and 54: Factors Enabling Features / Opportu
Page 55: 18 The Department of Science and Te

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